72 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
^ There can be no doubt that the results of the expedition, as 
far as we are able to judge from preliminary accounts, must 
prove highly satisfactory to the geographical world. It is more 
especially matter for congratulation that the scientific work 
has not been neglected. A higher latitude might no doubt 
have been reached had a coast extending northward in the 
direction of the Pole been discovered, but the attainment of a 
high latitude should at all times be subordinated to a thorough 
examination of the land and sea forming the object of explo- 
ration. 
We do not believe for a moment that England will be con- 
tent to rest upon the laurels won through this expedition. The 
Smith Sound route has now been fairly tried, and has been 
found to be impracticable as one of the gateways leading into 
the polar basin. There are, however, several other routes 
offering chances of success, and not one of these has been 
attempted hitherto by powerful steamers, expressly built for 
ice-navigation, and manned by a thoroughly competent set of 
men. One of these routes leads through Bering Strait and 
along the eastern coast of Wrangel Land into the Palseocrystic 
Sea. Then there is the route between Spitzbergen and Novaya 
Zemlya. The Tegctthojf was beset there by the ice and drifted 
about at the mercy of winds and currents until stranded upon 
the inhospitable shore of Franz Joseph Land, but Norwegian 
fishermen have frequently passed along it to the eastern ex- 
tremity of Novaya Zemlya, and Professor Nordenskiold, than 
whom none has more experience of these seas, proposes to give 
it a fair trial next year. A third route, due north from Spitz- 
bergen, enables a vessel to attain a latitude of 81° 30' or 82° N. 
almost every year, and, once successful in crossing the ice- 
stream setting in the direction of Greenland, there opens a fair 
prospect of making important discoveries. And lastly, there is the 
route along the east coast of Greenland, whose most persistent 
advocate is Dr. Petermann. In a letter recently addressed by 
that geographer to the President of the Royal Geographical 
Society he points out that the two German expeditions directed 
to that coast were not equipped as well as a government expe- 
dition would have been, and that their comparative want of 
success need not therefore cause surprise. A well-proved 
steamer might succeed where the schooner and the little 
steamer of the Germans were forced to turn back, and Captain 
Gray, who is thoroughly acquainted with the Greenland sea, 
feels certain that, once across the ice-stream, open water and un- 
discovered Arctic islands might be reached. An expedition, such 
as that of Captain Nares, if it once succeeded in establishing 
itself on the coast of Greenland, say in 80° N., might really do 
good work, though Dr. Petermann is oversanguine when he 
